Hey guys! I'm back! Earlier than I expected, actually. And I finally got the update ready!
Thanks so much for all the reviews! I read each and every one of them several times (I'm just one away from 175!), and your feedback means so much to me! (Oh, and sorry, Prajnaa, but if you want to find out about me, read my profile :P) Thanks so much!
Okay, anyway, the entire thing is in Marina's POV, because I felt that I was neglecting her for these last few chapters, except the previous one. A good bit of the next chapter is going to be in her POV too!
One last thing. It may get a little confusing, so remember- the part in italics on separate paragraphs is a flashback, while the normal is the current happenings. Italics equals flashback, if it's on a separate paragraph, and normal equals present events, okay?
Thanks for reading this ridiculously long author's note! Please read on, and enjoy!

Marina

The General tightens his grip on my neck, and then suddenly tosses me aside, sending me tumbling into Nine, limp as a rag-doll. My vision goes slack, and just for a minute or two, I black out.

When I come to, my hands and feet are securely bound in manacles. I test them thoroughly, jiggling my wrists to snap them into two, but they don't give. I breathe out a curse. They're made of the same metal that has caused us so much trouble, and I know without a shred of doubt that using my Legacies now will give me a splitting headache.

My vision tunnels, and I take a deep breath and gather my energy. The entire plan hinges on me being able to use my Legacy. Without it, we're all dead.

'You okay?' a voice asks, and I turn to see Nine looking at me with a concerned expression on his face. I can't see the others, but I have no doubt that they're bound and tied up just as well as me.

At least that's part of the plan.

'Will you just tell us the plan?' Six demands.

John and Nine exchange glances. 'Animal telepathy.' they chorus.

Six blinks. 'You can use it to communicate with us?' she asks, confused.

John rolls his eyes. 'Of course, Six.' he says, each word dripping with sarcasm. She glares at him, and his mocking expression disappears instantly.

'No.' he says, his voice serious now. 'Only to communicate with animals.'

'So it would only work on Nine.' Six reasons.

'Yeah, I'm fine.' I tell him, pressing my palms into the ground as a wave of nausea washes over me. Bits of gravel and small, flaking stones dig into my skin, but I manage not to throw up. The whole world stops swaying, and I exhale, thankful.

We all burst out laughing, but it doesn't last long. I feel suddenly aware of the fact that this is exactly the kind of thing Eight would have said, and I know the others are conscious of it too.

Even laughing feels like a crime now, when he's not here with us, when he's not the reason we're laughing any more, when he never will be again.

'Do you know how long I was out?' I ask Nine, my eyes narrowing into slits.

Nine nods. He's understood the real meaning of the question all right. Translating it into crazy plan speech- "how long do we have left?"

'Almost five minutes.' he says. His eyebrows crease, and I know what he wants to add. I know what he would say if we weren't swarmed by soldiers at this very instant. He needs me to be ready.

Any moment now.

'When the distraction happens, you need to take out the General.' John says. 'You understand, Marina? We'll get just one chance, and that's when he's most distracted. Do whatever- knock him out, blast him with your ice-Legacy…'

'Knee him where it hurts.' Six supplies.

'Heal him to the point where he can smell his own breath.' Nine suggests.

'Just put him out of action long enough for us to regroup.' John finishes. 'They expect us to use force, stealth, strategy… They'll be ready for anything. They can premeditate it easily. What we need to do is what they least expect us to do.'

'Get me captured?' I ask dubiously.

'Well, all of us, really.' John says. 'But you'll be the one handling the General, yeah.'

'Why do I have to be the damsel in distress?' I complain.

Six snorts. 'Can you see me pulling it off?'

Fair enough. I know when I'm beaten.

Suddenly, without warning, I feel myself yanked by the neck again. Nine yelps in surprise as I'm dragged away from him, the General lifting me effortlessly to the sundial.

'Let her go!' Nine yells angrily, straining against his bonds. He wriggles, trying to manoeuvre through the chains, but the locks are too well secured.

The General ignores him completely. 'You hear that, Number Seven?' he asks, his voice a low growl that sets the hairs raising on my neck. I stop struggling momentarily and listen. There's a faint rhythmic thudding below me, moving closer to the sundial, and I know the soldiers will be emerging any moment now. The General leans closer and growls into my ear. 'Your time's almost up. You're going to die.'

I do my best to block him out. He's trying to intimidate me, trying to get me to give up, and I refuse to let him. Instead, I try to gather my energy. Using my Legacy with these chains is going to be no easy task, but I have no other choice.

Only seconds left now.

I let out a frustrated groan. 'Fine.' I relent. 'But what's going to be the distraction?'

Nine and John grin at each other, and I know they're about to unveil the masterpiece of their plan. This is the real twister, the thing the Mogs are going to expect the least. I find myself leaning forward with anticipation.

'The Chimaera.' they say simultaneously.

The General slams me to my knees, pushing my head down roughly to make it look like I'm kneeling before him. 'You ready, Number Seven?' he asks, a smug grin plastered on his face. 'This is how you're going to die. Grovelling in the dust, like the lowly animal you are.' He grabs hold of my hair and yanks me so I'm positioned right next to the sundial. 'When my soldiers come.' he promises. 'I want to see the despair on your face when you see that none of your allies are left to save your pathetic lives.'

The knowledge that his soldiers are going to return empty-handed gives me the courage to glare up at him and spit on his face.

'BK sneaks into the sundial in the form of a fly, and gets the Chimaera out.' Nine says happily. 'The simplest retrieval in the world. Man, I can't wait to see the General's face when he sees his soldiers come back without the Chimaera.'

The General's smirk is wiped off his face, and he raises his hand to backhand me across the face, but I roll aside and scramble to my feet. 'No.' I tell him, breathing heavily. 'I will not die like that. I will die fighting to the last breath, General Sutekh.' I spit out the name venomously. 'So if you want to kill me,' I step towards him and look him in the eye, letting him know that I am not afraid. 'Then I will die resisting you.'

To my surprise, the General's anger fades away. He lets out a roar of laughter. 'You got spunk, Number Seven.' he admits. Without warning, he seizes me by the neck and hoists me into the air, his iron grip squeezing the life out of me even harder than before. I claw at my neck, gasping for breath, but no air gets through. 'But that's where you're wrong.' he says gleefully. 'You will die trying.'

His grip relaxes a bit, letting me stay alive until his soldiers return, but I don't suck in the air greedily. I allow myself to go limp, withdraw into my mind for the final bit of strength I have left, strength I will need if I am to survive. I allow myself to forget the pain, the loss, the suffering that I have endured. I allow him to believe he's won, and through the haze that clouds my vision, I see him smile triumphantly.

'When they're most complacent,' John says.

He's relaxed now, almost complacent.

'When they least expect it.' John continues.

He thinks we have given up.

'When they're most distracted.' Nine says, his voice becoming grim.

And that will be his downfall.

John takes a breath. The atmosphere in the van has become painfully tense, and everyone is tingling with anticipation, hanging on to his every word, waiting for what he will say next.

'Then the Chimaera attack.' he says.

A clinking at the bottom of the sundial. The soldiers have started climbing out. I exhale almost involuntarily.

John turns to me. 'And then you attack.'

Air trickles through my crushed windpipe, and suddenly the pain returns, shooting through my skull and down into my ribs. I let out a loud gasp, and the General's grip tightens instantly, cutting off my air again.

'I don't like this.' Six says reluctantly. 'It's too dangerous, and we're assuming the General won't just kill us instantly, instead of waiting for the Chimaera to appear.' She blinks. 'Why would we go in there once we've got the Chimaera out anyway?'

'Firstly,' Adam begins. 'He won't kill you. That would be giving you the easy way out. If he believes there is no one left to save you, then he will want to torture you before he kills you.' He pauses, his eyes taking in each of us in turn. 'For fun.'

'That makes me feel so much better.' Six mutters.

'Secondly,' John says, 'if we bypass it completely, then they won't wait to empty out everything that is hidden in that sundial. We need to get those papers and that skeleton out of there.' He looks at Six, and his gaze is intense. 'Please trust me on this one, Six.' he pleads. 'We need them to win.'

'Leave her alone!' a voice yells out, and the General's grip slackens as he turns to face the speaker. Six is somehow on her feet, struggling against the soldiers restraining her, fighting even though she's bound in chains. She locks eyes with me, and her expression is filled with fear and anxiety.

Six is afraid.

She is afraid Eight's prophecy will come true right away. She is afraid I won't be able to act in time to save myself, even with the distraction. She is losing hope.

Six turns to face me, and I catch the worry in her eyes, the troubled expression on her face. She knows she cannot protect me when the General captures us. She is afraid Eight's prophecy will come true, here, now, in Paradise.

I am terrified too. But I will not let that get in the way of this plan.

I expect Six to try to dissuade me, to shoot down the plan, to tell everyone about Eight's prediction, but instead she just grips my shoulders, her hands tightening reassuringly around them. 'John's Cepan, Henri, had this quote.' she says carefully, quietly so that only Nine and I can hear. Her voice is strained, and she sounds like she's reassuring herself as much as me. 'John told me about it once, when it was just us and Sam.' She pauses for breath, and her eyes bore into mine. 'There's always hope, Marina. New developments have yet to present themselves. Not all the information is in. Don't give up hope just yet. It's the last thing to go.' She pauses, takes a deep breath. 'When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.'

There is always hope.

I don't say anything, just stare into Six's eyes. They are pleading, wild like an animal's. She cannot lose me so soon after Eight's death, but she won't. She needs to trust me. If she ruins the plan by resisting too much right now, then all of us will die.

I try to communicate to her with my eyes. "It will work." I tell her silently. "There is always hope."

Six doesn't say anything, but her body slackens, and she slumps down, allowing herself to be dragged down by the soldiers, out of my sight once again, and I know that I've convinced her for now.

If only I could convince myself.

There's a clinking sound right next to me, and the first soldier emerges from the sundial, coated with dust from head to toe. The General's attention is instantly back on me again, and his grip tightens, his fingers twitching, eager for the kill.

I'm almost choking now, but I manage to look away and lock eyes with Nine. His gaze is unruffled and composed, but underneath, I can sense his panic. He needs to wait for my signal. He needs to time it perfectly.

'Tell her you found them.' the General says, his voice quivering with excitement. His arm retracts, tenses, and I see his sword already drawn back, ready to strike, ready to kill. 'Tell her!' he yells impatiently.

Nine's eyes widen. He opens his mouth, but I cut him off with a glare. Not yet.

The soldier looks away from the General, not meeting his eye. 'Um, sir, actually…'

When they're most complacent.

'What?' the General snaps impatiently, annoyed.

When they least expect it.

'We searched the place with biometric scanners, as you commanded.' the soldier says nervously. The General shifts his feet impatiently, his attention completely off me now. Every Mogodorian in this place is now staring intently at the soldier. They don't expect us to retaliate. They think we're helpless, and they've allowed themselves to get complacent, to get distracted.

When they are most distracted.

'They're not there.' the soldier finally says, looking up reluctantly to meet the General's eye.

Nine's eyes bore into mine, and almost imperceptibly, I nod my head. Now.

Then the Chimaera attack.

There's a huge roar, and my head whips to the side to see a gigantic beast bearing down on the Mogodorians near where Six lay, leaving clouds of ash in the air. Another one pounces on the Mog guarding Nine, swallowing him in a single gulp. Another roar follows, then a second, then a third, and in moments, there are seven charging beasts, causing chaos in the ranks of the Mogs.

I'm dropped unceremoniously to the ground, and on instinct, I roll aside, barely avoiding the gigantic sword that cleaves the ground where I lay just moments ago, kicking up clouds of dust into the air. I scramble to my feet and face the General, his eyes wide with surprise and fury, and even a hint of fear.

He raises his sword again to strike me down, his eyes as wide as a madman's and something in me snaps. He's treated me like dirt, naturally assumed me the weakest, half-choked me to death, humiliated me, and now he's trying to kill me first, because he thinks I'll be the weakest target, the easiest to defeat in order for him to salvage some pride from this mission.

Looking up at him, it isn't hard to summon up the same anger that I felt when Eight was killed. It was his kind who invaded Lorien, who massacred thousands of innocents, who destroyed my home, who turned Five, who killed Adelina, Hector and Eight. He deserves to suffer. There is no torture, no painful death that can be enough to punish him for what he has done.

The General's blade barrels down on me, but I don't even have to think. I flick my hand, and it stops mid-air, held in place by my telekinesis. The General strains, trying to force it downwards, but I don't even have to try to hold it back.

My head pounds, and it feels as though someone is trying to force a hot poker through my skull, but it seems almost far away, like I'm observing rather than experiencing it. I'm blinded by my anger, which feels red-hot as it courses through my veins, contrasting with the rapidly dropping temperature around me.

I thrust my arm upwards, and an icicle erupts from the ground, mimicking my actions. The General staggers backwards, letting go of his sword, which clatters to the ground, his torso sliced open by the needle-like point of the icicle.

I thrust upwards again, and this time the icicle catches the General mid-step. He lets out a gasp and jerks away, but my creation is too quick, enveloping him and freezing him right where he stands.

I stop and catch my breath, staring half in amazement at my handiwork. The ice has completely surrounded the General, and he's trapped within it, unmoving, silent, his eyes- still frozen wide with shock- glassy and unseeing.

I've killed him.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed that. I've been working on this chapter for a long time, and I had a lot of different ideas, so I hope I've managed them all well.
Did the General die? Maybe, maybe not. You'll find out soon enough!
Okay, next update will be on Wednesday, once my exams are over and done with. Not before, I doubt I'll have time, but most definitely not after.
Okay, thanks for reading! Now please review!